“I was forced to reprimand a member of my staff.” Katie stood in the hallway, wearing a dressing gown that shimmered like silk. She was clearly naked beneath it, the thin fabric blood-free and molding to her thighs. I’d seen Katie in that robe. I’d helped her out of it numerous times before a feeding and what she called blood pleasure. “May I ask that your blood-servant assist with the transfusion?” Katie asked. “It is not my intent to lose him.”
Leo glanced at me and I looked reluctantly from him to the stranger before I nodded to Katie that I was willing. But I stabbed the rogue-vampire hunter with a look, making it clear that I didn’t like the idea of leaving her alone with my boss, promising to kill her slowly if she injured Leo. I rolled my head on my shoulders, and heard two cracks as my spine realigned itself, and I went down the hallway, my booted feet silent on the wood and carpets. Predator silent.
Blood, Fangs, and Going Furry
He didn’t remember much about that first full moon except the pain, the burning, scalding, skin-crawling pain when his pelt wanted to thrust through his skin, when his bones begged—demanded—to shift. When his eyes went green gold, and the night came alive in rich blues and greens and silvers, and the detail of the world was so intense that it was like nothing he had ever seen before. When the scents on the air became acute, almost brutal in their concentration.
The sensory overload was like being tossed off a high bridge to land at the bottom of a rock-strewn crevasse and find himself broken, bloodied, but miraculously alive. Only to have a Mack truck run him down and crush out whatever life had been left. At the same time it was like having a live current rushing though his body, icy and burning, his brain on fire, his skin roasting, and no evidence of it except the funky green gold of his eyes.
He couldn’t stop it, couldn’t make it go away, couldn’t shift into his cat to ease his pain. Kemnebi, the only other black were-leopard on the continent and arguably the highest alpha black were-leopard on the planet, had refused him aid, standing back and laughing at his torment. Even when Leo Pellissier, the Master of the City, had threatened to kill Kem if he didn’t help, he had refused, saying that Rick had brought it on himself. Which he had. Totally.
He’d FUBARed it all the way, losing his humanity, the girl he had flipped over—Jane Yellowrock—and probably his job too.
Gee DiMercy, Leo Pellissier’s Mercy Blade, had told him Jane could help. Which made no sense. Jane worked for the vamps as a security expert and rogue-vamp killer. Jane wasn’t a were. But something in Gee’s voice had been convincing, and Rick had found himself on his bike, blasting down the roads and across the Mississippi, into the Big Easy, believing Jane could—and maybe would, even after he’d betrayed her—help him.
Pain raging in him like a rabid cat clawing the inside of his skin, Rick had bent over the bike and roared away from the MOC’s Clan Home. Later, when he was on the edge of dreams, still-shot moments of that ride came to him: taking the bridge east, flying in at nearly a hundred miles per hour, threading the needle between two eighteen-wheelers, hearing his own voice screaming with rage. Taking a curve, one boot on the pavement, the sole actually smoking. Dodging a car as it ran a red light, his reflexes like lightning on meth.
One thing stayed in the forefront of his mind—he had to get to Jane. She would know how to help. Help him to shift or help him to resist or maybe put a bullet through his brain if nothing better presented itself. He knew, because they’d had something once and because there had been no closure yet, and because Jane Yellowrock had saved his life.
He ended up on her street. She was half a block down, standing beside her bike in the middle of the street, her helmet off, her hair streaming back in the heated breeze, as if she had heard him coming and was waiting for him. He downshifted the red Kow-bike—the Kawasaki—and puttered to a stop. Put his feet down, bracing himself. His head and face were hidden by his helmet and face shield, and for a long moment, feeling anonymous yet knowing he wasn’t, knowing that she had to know who he was, he watched her.
As the breeze that carried his scent reached her, her eyes did a feral shift and glowed golden. A lot like his tonight, except her eyes were always amber and his had been Frenchy black until this full moon. His first full moon with the taint of were-cat blood rushing through his veins, making him half-crazy with the pain.